I am a fan of The New York Times. After all, I worked there for nearly nine
years.
But there are some stories The Times does that send me over the top.
"Are Liberals Helping Trump," a news analysis that appeared on The Times' website on Saturday was one of those articles.
According to the analysis, the upsurge in anti-Trump protests since the inauguration is pushing "moderate conservatives" who voted for Trump closer to him.
"We're backed into a corner," Jeffrey Medford, a 46-year-old owner of a small business in South Carolina, told the analysis' author, Sabrina Tavernise. "There are at least some things about Trump that I find defensible. But they are saying: 'Agree with us 100 percent or you are morally bankrupt. You're an idiot if you support any part of Trump."
He later told Tavernise: "I didn't choose a side. They put me on one."
Bryce Youngquist, a 34-year-old salesman at a tech start-up in Mountain View Calif., said of liberals:
"They are complaining that Trump calls people names, but they turned into some mean people."
Youngquist told Tavernise that when he finally admitted to his friends that he supported Trump they attacked him as being a "disgusting human being."
"They were making me want to support him more with how irrational they were being," he said. "The name calling from the left is crazy."
Ann O'Connell, a 72-year-old retired administrative assistant in Syracuse who said she voted for Bill Clinton twice, said she drifted from the Democratic Party because she felt it had moved away from its middle-class economic roots toward identity politics.
"I don't have a problem with protesting as long as it's peaceful, but this is destroying the country," she said. "I feel like we are in some kind of civil war right now. I know people don't like to use those terms. But I think it's scary."
She went on to say of liberal protestors: "These people are destroying our democracy. They are scarier to me than these Islamic terrorists. I feel absolutely disgusted with them and their antics. It strengthens people's resolve in wanting to support Trump. It really does."
That Medford, Youngquist, and O'Connell are disgusted with liberals does not bother me. That their responses to liberal protests is to double down on their conservativism does not bother me. The truth is I expect such a reaction.
What bothers me is that there is little evidence that Tavernise pushed the three on why they voted for Trump in the first place, or whether they felt the same way when conservatives attacked President Barack Obama, calling him a closet Muslim and saying he was not born in the United States.
For eight years, conservative trolls referred to liberals as ‘libetards.” They called the President and First Lady apes. A Republican screamed “You lie” at President Obama during a State of the Union address. And of course there were the Tea Party protests.
Were these “moderate conservatives” upset at the protests and attacks from conservatives when it was directed at Obama? If they can't defend Trump now, then why did they vote for him? Are they upset at Trump's tendency to lie? Do they have questions about his possible conflicts-of-interest? Do they think it was okay for Trump not to release his taxes? How can "moderate conseratives," who called Hillary Clinton a crook, justify voting for a man who thinks its good business not to pay the owners of small businesses money he owes? Is there doubling-down a defense mechanism for voting for an unfit candidate for President?
We won’t know reading Tavernise’s analysis.
But there are some stories The Times does that send me over the top.
"Are Liberals Helping Trump," a news analysis that appeared on The Times' website on Saturday was one of those articles.
According to the analysis, the upsurge in anti-Trump protests since the inauguration is pushing "moderate conservatives" who voted for Trump closer to him.
"We're backed into a corner," Jeffrey Medford, a 46-year-old owner of a small business in South Carolina, told the analysis' author, Sabrina Tavernise. "There are at least some things about Trump that I find defensible. But they are saying: 'Agree with us 100 percent or you are morally bankrupt. You're an idiot if you support any part of Trump."
He later told Tavernise: "I didn't choose a side. They put me on one."
Bryce Youngquist, a 34-year-old salesman at a tech start-up in Mountain View Calif., said of liberals:
"They are complaining that Trump calls people names, but they turned into some mean people."
Youngquist told Tavernise that when he finally admitted to his friends that he supported Trump they attacked him as being a "disgusting human being."
"They were making me want to support him more with how irrational they were being," he said. "The name calling from the left is crazy."
Ann O'Connell, a 72-year-old retired administrative assistant in Syracuse who said she voted for Bill Clinton twice, said she drifted from the Democratic Party because she felt it had moved away from its middle-class economic roots toward identity politics.
"I don't have a problem with protesting as long as it's peaceful, but this is destroying the country," she said. "I feel like we are in some kind of civil war right now. I know people don't like to use those terms. But I think it's scary."
She went on to say of liberal protestors: "These people are destroying our democracy. They are scarier to me than these Islamic terrorists. I feel absolutely disgusted with them and their antics. It strengthens people's resolve in wanting to support Trump. It really does."
That Medford, Youngquist, and O'Connell are disgusted with liberals does not bother me. That their responses to liberal protests is to double down on their conservativism does not bother me. The truth is I expect such a reaction.
What bothers me is that there is little evidence that Tavernise pushed the three on why they voted for Trump in the first place, or whether they felt the same way when conservatives attacked President Barack Obama, calling him a closet Muslim and saying he was not born in the United States.
For eight years, conservative trolls referred to liberals as ‘libetards.” They called the President and First Lady apes. A Republican screamed “You lie” at President Obama during a State of the Union address. And of course there were the Tea Party protests.
Were these “moderate conservatives” upset at the protests and attacks from conservatives when it was directed at Obama? If they can't defend Trump now, then why did they vote for him? Are they upset at Trump's tendency to lie? Do they have questions about his possible conflicts-of-interest? Do they think it was okay for Trump not to release his taxes? How can "moderate conseratives," who called Hillary Clinton a crook, justify voting for a man who thinks its good business not to pay the owners of small businesses money he owes? Is there doubling-down a defense mechanism for voting for an unfit candidate for President?
We won’t know reading Tavernise’s analysis.
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